


Patching Up

by Lynniethebeegirl



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5228939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynniethebeegirl/pseuds/Lynniethebeegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lafontaine and Perry backstory and angst, Perry gets hurt a lot in s2 and Laf has to patch her up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This switches from past to present a lot, so sorry if it's confusing!

The first time Laf bandaged Perry up they were both seven, playing on the swings at Laf’s house. Betsy had been in the hospital for her third round of chemo and Perry’s mother was at the hospital with her, leaving Perry with Laf’s mum. Perry had tried to hop off the swing before it was low enough and had skinned her knees. Easily fixable with bandaids…

“There was just blood…everywhere.” Perry’s hands are shaking, tears streaked across her face. Blood is splattered across her arms, her shirt, everywhere. Band aids aren’t going to fix this.

Perry hadn’t cried when she’d fallen the first time. Just blinked back tears while Laf inspected the damage.

She’s shaking now, trembling like a leaf. Not crying, but something past crying. She’s in shock, pale, body temperature is probably dropping.

When Laf had brought Perry into the house to get cleaned up Laf’s mum had been sprawled on the couch, recovering from a hangover, or already passed out drunk. Laf knew better than to bother her, even with a fairly shaky understanding of their mother’s alcoholism, they knew not to bother her.

There’s no adults now, just Laf supporting Perry and leading her to the bathroom to get cleaned up. Perry sits on the toilet lid, skin translucent under the fluorescent lights.

“I’m going to wipe the blood off you. Is that okay?” Laf waits for Perry to nod slowly before taking damp washcloth and washing her hands, then her forearms. Perry’s hair is okay, but her shirt is soaked through to the skin where she had fallen. 

“I’m going to get you another shirt. I’ll be right back.”

Laf unbuttons Perry’s shirt, tossing the bloody fabric in the bathtub. Perry doesn’t even mutter anything about running cold water so it can soak, she just stands there, shivering. Laf wipes the blood off her stomach, and helps her out of her blood soaked pants.

“They weren’t breathing. I could hear the blood dripping, but they were all lying there and there was no breathing. That was the only sound.” Perry starts to cry, and Laf hugs her, feeling her heart hammering in her chest.

“Shhhhh it’s okay. You’re safe.”

“I’m not safe. None of us are safe. If they killed those kids they can kill us to!” Perry begins to panic again, and Laf tries to calm her down, rubbing small circles across her back.

“I’m not going to let them hurt you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood trigger warning.

The night Laf’s parents had died blood had been everywhere. Mum in the driver’s seat, smelling of alcohol and death, dad in the passenger seat, early onset dementia had destroyed his brain long before the guardrail came through the windshield and smashed his skull.

Laf had been in the back, miraculously unhurt. Light bruises from the seatbelt, a black eye from the side airbag. A true miracle, a success of the car’s design. They had been pulled out, strapped to a table, airlifted to the hospital to have their spine x-rayed. Sedation, hours of confusion, then light. Perry’s voice, Perry’s hands, Perry helping them stand, walk to the car, walk into the house.

Blood. Blood everywhere. Soaking their hair, clothes, seeping into the cracks of their skin. Laf had stared in the mirror, stared at the blood, wondered why there wasn’t any pain, where had the blood come from.

“Honey, sit down. You need to get clean, then you can sleep.” Perry had scrubbed Laf’s face, helping them get out of their clothes before sitting them on the floor of the shower, turning the water on.

Blood had flowed down the drain in endless streams, dripping off Laf’s arms, legs, hair. They had had shoulder length hair back then, and the image of the two colors of red is burned into their brain. 

Perry turned the water off and sat on the edge of the tub, shampooing Laf’s hair. Red tinged suds had slid down the drain, not pink like in books, just a horrible gory mess. It took three rounds of washing before the suds were white.

Perry lifted Laf’s arms, washed the blood away, and then turned on the water again, letting the pounding water wash way any remaining blood.

Laf remembers everything clearly. The blood, the hard white fragments of their father’s skull that Perry had brushed out of their hair. Perry lifting them out of the tub, drying them off, forcing sluggish limbs into pajamas. She had steered them to bed, supporting them as they took slow step after slow step, barely able to piece together the thoughts necessary for that simple action.

That night Perry had been the big spoon, arms wrapped around Laf protectively. 

Now Perry is restless, muttering, whispering about the gates and the blood. Laf lies against her, hand on her side, debating whether or not to wake her. She’s always been a sleep talker, always keeping up a monologue, and it’s never been any different than this in nature. The blood though, if it’s something awful Perry shouldn’t be trapped there.

She jerks awake, and Laf is there, arms around her.

“You’re safe. I’ve got you.” Laf holds her, watching her face in the dim light, seeing the panicked look fade from her face. “Nightmare?”

“There’s blood, blood everywhere.” Perry sits up muttering, and Laf takes her hand. “There’s a knife and I can’t see who was holding it and the only footprints are mine and I…”

“Hey. Hey.” Laf pulls Perry down against them, feeling Perry’s fingers grip their back. “I’m right here.”


	3. Chapter 3

Perry knows how to do stitches. Weeks of sitting in a hospital waiting room while her mother sat with Betsy had eventually led to a nurse taking pity on her and letting her follow her around on her ER shift. She’d watched thousands of stitches being administered, sometimes clumsily imitated them with a sewing needle and scraps of fabric. This is the first time she’s needed them though.

It had been terrifying, disjointed, a fever dream. Something floating above her, limbs frozen still even though she wanted to move, wanted to run. When she had clawed herself back to the surface the words had been there, carved into her stomach. She had moved cautiously, spending several minutes trying to open the door. She’d forgotten that she locked it, hadn’t thought that it would still be locked. They had gotten to her. Sliced her open. Spilled her blood in tiny rivers across her skin.

She lies on her back, staring up at Laf. They’ve found some sutures, and some iodine, some stained towels that Perry insisted on covering the sheets with before the stitching can start.

Laf dabs the iodine on the wounds and Perry winces at the sensation. The cuts are thin but jagged, slices of skin torn out entirely. It needs stitching. Railroad stitch?

“We don’t have any local anesthetic, so this might sting.” Laf mumbles, squeezing Perry’s hand before picking up the needle.

The first few stitches are excruciating. Laf’s hands are shaking, and they get paler every time Perry whimpers.

“Use the railroad stitch, it’ll be better.”

“I don’t know how.” After a few failed attempts, resulting in more blood sliding down Perry’s side, she finally calls it off.

“I’m going to do it myself.” She takes the needle from Laf, who looks close to tears.

“What do you need me to do?” Laf asks. They move behind Perry, lifting her head into their lap, supporting her upper body so she can see what she’s doing.

She finishes the stitches quickly, gritting her teeth against the pain, and then relaxes against Laf, head spinning. She closes her eyes and feels Laf’s hand on her forehead, smoothing away the tension lines. 

“I’m sorry.” Laf’s voice is rough, close to crying. “I should have been there. I should have been there.”

Perry doesn’t say anything, but she reaches up and takes Laf’s hand, the world still spinning around her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry if the grammar in this is terrible, I'm switching tenses a lot and it's difficult.

Blood. Screaming. Images of the world torn to pieces, fires burning. Images of Perry lying dead.

Ropes around their wrists and ankles. An old dorm room in a partially collapsed building. Kirsch bound similarly in the bed across the room.

Blinding light tearing through their skull. Laura and Carmilla dead. Danny dead. JP dead. 

The room shaking, Kirsch screaming. 

Perry leans over them, drives the sword into their chest, mouth open in a grimace. Perry. Not Perry. The dean. Perry.

Perry is in there somewhere.

Perry hadn’t cried at the hospital. She hadn’t cried washing the blood out of Laf’s hair. She hadn’t cried at the funeral. She hadn’t cried until three days after the funeral when Laf had shaved their head. They’d had recurring nightmares of the blood in their hair since the accident, dreams of their mother brushing and braiding their hair. It was easier to just shave it all down to the scalp. Perry had cried when she’d seen it, said it reminded her of Betsy.

Laf had kept their hair short since then, but now it was longer, almost long enough to get in their eyes as they thrashed on the bed. Time had lost its meaning, the fish in their brain, in their thoughts, the only understanding of what was happening came from the short moments of lucidity between possessions.

Perry. Perry is hurt, Perry is dying. No. Worse.

Danny had tied Laf here before going down to try to find Perry, leaving Laura and Carmilla alone to fight Vordenburg. Laf remembers sitting on the edge of the bed while Danny tied up Kirsch, then lying to let her do the same thing to them.

They’d asked Danny to get Perry out alive, save her somehow. Danny had finished tying their ankles, and was trying to get the right length of rope for their wrists when Laf saw the tears leaking out of her eyes.

“I’ll try.” Danny had hugged Laf, and Laf could feel her tears splattering on their shirt. They’d wanted to cry, but crying wasn’t something they could do in front of someone. Perry. They could cry in front of Perry.

They wake lying on a mattress on the floor, Kirsch on one side, Laura on the other. Rope burns mark their wrists and ankles, their shoulders ache, their head pounds. They get into a sitting position, and see that Kirsch is in a similar condition with rope burns and bruises.

Laura. Small, lying still as a corpse except for faint breathing. Her shirt is soaked in blood, a poorly stitched stab wound above her heart. Not her heart. Where her heart would be without dextrocardia. Dark bruises mark the insides of her arms from poorly inserted needles. Laura.

They stand up slowly, painfully, and limp away from the mattress. They’re still in the collapsed dorm building, in the basement hallway most likely, and faint noises are coming from the dorm kitchen, and a faint light.

Danny. On her back on the kitchen table. Blood everywhere. Front of her shirt sliced open to reveal deep cuts, exposed bone. Carmilla and JP work on her feverishly, stitching her wrists and chest, JP occasionally dripping some sort of green liquid into her mouth. Her face is white as marble, her lips blue. The blood soaks her clothes, her skin is stained, the raw cuts in her chest still open. Danny.

The vampires lean towards each other, and Laf can’t hear anything, or if there’s a sound, it doesn’t make sense.

JP leaves Danny, and steer Laf down the hall, towards a room that looked like it had been recently barricaded shut, but now stood open. Laf stands back, fearful, but JP takes their hand and leads them in.

She’s lying curled on her side, dark slashes on her neck and wrists, skin around her eyes black and blue. She looks wizened and innocent at the same time, crumpled in the bed that Laf had screamed and struggled in for days, tucked in by someone unknown.

Perry.


	5. Chapter 5

Carmilla leans against the doorframe, eyes sunken, skin stretched across her bones like a corpse. She’s almost doubled over, about to collapse in on herself.  
“I’m going to go eat. JP is sitting with Danny and Laura, Kirsch went out to try to find some medical supplies.”

“Okay.” Laf is holding Perry’s hand while she sleeps, almost tipping over from exhaustion. 

“If she wakes up give her a little to eat and drink, and some meds for the headache. Give her a bucket to throw up in if she needs it.” Carmilla stands silently for a moment, watching Perry sleep, and then shakes her head as if awakening from a nightmare. “Don’t talk about what happened when she was possessed. If she asks what she did tell her that you were out the whole time and don’t know.”

“Okay.”

When Laf looks up again Carmilla is gone.

****

Perry wakes up a few hours later, dazed. She asks about Danny and Laf tells her that she was hurt, but will be fine. Everyone will be fine. Sooner or later.

Carmilla comes back and checks on Laura before pulling Laf out of the room to talk about Perry.

“She asked about Danny, and then about everyone else. I told her that you killed Vordenburg. She’s pretty out of it.”

“If she isn’t asking too many questions we’ll keep her in the dark for a few days, so she can heal from the physical stuff. I’d like to get Danny’s side of the story too, before I try to fill her in.”

“She did that to Danny?”

“The Dean did that to Danny. She used Perry’s body to do it.”

“Is Danny awake yet?”

“It’s going to be a while.”

“Okay.”

“Get some sleep.”


	6. Chapter 6

Perry jerks awake in the darkness and tries to throw the weight on her chest off. Blankets tumble off, landing on Laf, who jerks awake. The pressure stays, now accompanied by searing pain across the jagged stitches in her wrists and neck.

“Perry.” Laf grabs her hands, keeping her from moving and opening the incisions again. She struggles a moment, the chest pressure still there like a bowling ball against her sternum.

Searing pain. Every cell in her body torn apart. Her hands grasping the sword, driving it down into Danny’s chest. Struggling against her own body, struggling against the pressure in her brain, another mind crammed in her skull. Heart pumping weakly, another heart in her chest, forcing her own into submission.

“Perry. Come back. It’s over, I’ve got you.” The room becomes fractured, and Perry shuts her eyes tight, holding onto Laf for dear life, trying not to be dragged down again.

Danny beneath her, soaked in blood, struggling weakly. The sword shoved deep into her chest, head tipped backwards, face twisted in agony. Danny cries, begging for her life, screaming in pain as Perry tears the sword out of her chest, collapsing against her. 

“Danny.” Perry whispers her name, and feels Laf’s lips against her forehead.

“She’s going to live. Everyone is going to live.”

“I hurt her.” Perry trembles, remembering the first hazy hours of lucidity after the Dean, remembers Laf wiping the blood off her face, not being able to remember whose blood it was.

“No. Whatever happened it was the Dean.” Carmilla stands in the doorway, clothes torn and stained with blood, bags under her eyes. “My mother did this.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Carmilla takes Laf’s place, cradling Perry’s hand. Perry stares up at her, the gentle touch alien coming from Carmilla.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. The headaches should pass in a few days.” Carmilla swallows, and looks at the ceiling. “She did that to me, too. So if…if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

“What did I do?” Her voice is ragged, and she needs to know, needs to know what she had done.

“Mother. She did this. You have to remember everything that happened, she did. It’s the only way you’ll survive this.” 

The only way to survive.


	7. Chapter 7

Carmilla sits with Perry, sending Laf out to keep an eye on the others. Laura is awake, still dazed. She manages to sit up a little bit, but collapses in tears. From pain, or from seeing Danny.

Danny lies next to Laura, still unconscious. Her skin is gray except for a bright patch of red on each cheek, hands blue, and the bandages that Carmilla had wrapped her torso in have turned a nasty green color. Laf puts a hand to her forehead, and she’s burning up.

“Laf?” Laura gazes up at them, eyes hazy with pain and confusion. “Who’s dead?”

“Vordenburg and the dean are dead. Everyone else is alive.”

“What happened to Danny?”

“She got hurt. She’s going to be okay.”

“Perry?”

“She’s fine. She just can’t be here right now.”

Laura lies limp on the bare mattress, eyes wandering. She tries to look at Danny, but her eyes glaze over and she needs to look away. Carmilla had been with her when she’d woken up, but had refused to give her details regarding everyone else’s injuries.

“What happened to me?”

“You got staked in the chest.”

“Where’s Carm?”

“Talking to Perry.”

“What happened to Perry?”

“She’s fine. She just needs some alone time.”

“What’s wrong with Danny?”

The conversation continues in a circular way, Laura forgetting things as soon as Laf tells her. She eventually drifts off and Laf lies down in the space next to Danny. They’ve been sleeping on the floor next to Perry, and the hard floor and sleeplessness has begun to take a toll on them.

The sleep is restless, and Carmilla shakes Laf awake, sending them back to Perry. Kirsch and JP are both out, but they’d been back at some point in the past few hours. Laf helps Perry stand and walk a few steps to the bathroom to wash her cuts in the fresh water that Kirsch had brought.

The campus is mostly destroyed. Between The Dean and Vordenburg most buildings have been leveled and most students have been killed or been sent fleeing into the surrounding mountains. They’d heard a rumor that the Zeta’s house remained standing, and Kirsch and JP had made plans to go check it out. The Dean hadn’t bothered to mess with Vordenburg’s forces if they didn’t get in her way.

Perry walks around the room a few times before the movement starts to bother her neck wound, and then she sits at the desk, face blank. Laf sits on the end of the bed, waiting for Perry to say something.

“Hey.” Carmilla eases open the door. “Danny’s fever broke.” Perry flinches at Danny’s name, and Laf glares at Carmilla.

“Sorry.” Carm places a dusty notebook and some broken colored pencils next to Perry. “Draw what happened. Or what you think happened. Or something that isn’t related at all. It helps.” She pulls Laf out into the hall.

“What’s going on?” 

“Kirsch and JP just got back. The Zeta and Summer houses are both relatively untouched. They have electricity, water, and medical supplies. Most of the Zetas and a small group of the Summers have survived. The science building is badly damaged in some sections, but the basement labs are still stable.” The two of them go to the kitchen, the table, floors, and walls still stained with Danny and Laura’s blood.

“What do we do?” Laf is scattered, unsure of where to go next. Perry is hurt, she needs hot water and antibiotics. Danny needs a hospital, and Laura too. Laf needs to take care of Perry.

“The Summer’s won’t let any men near their territory. They took some potshots at the boys and I had to step in and have a chat with them. Ten are still alive.” Ten. Out of the fifty they had before. “Most of them were killed by Zetas, so the remaining are understandably hostile towards anyone that could conceivably be one. I explained our situation, and they’re willing to take Danny and Laura in for medical care, no questions asked.”

“What about the rest of us?”

“When the Dean went on a rampage and killed nearly a hundred students several videos were uploaded to the Etheralnet. While not having any personal battle with the Dean’s forces, they don’t want to go the way of some of the students she disemboweled. You, me, and Perry can stay there, under heavy guard.”

“We’ll be prisoners.” Laf isn’t sure how to feel about this.

“Prisoners with hot water, food, and medical supplies.” Carmilla shakes Laf’s shoulder. “They’ll be here in a few hours, if we honor our end of the truce.”


	8. Chapter 8

Two hours before the Summers arrive Kirsch and JP head out. The boathouse at the edge of campus is still standing, and they can stay there until the Summers have collected Danny and Laura.

When footsteps echo in the distance and the stones near the entrance to the collapsed building shift, Laf, Perry, and Danny kneel with their hands on the back of their heads, facing the wall. Danny and Laura lie sedated on the mattress, the few supplies they have left piled between them.

“Cuff the vampire and the terraphage. The anglerfish vessel can go free.” The Summer’s roll Laura and Danny onto stretchers and strap them down, giving Laf an end of Laura’s stretcher to carry. Carmilla and Perry are cuffed and yanked roughly to their feet.

“Move on out.” The leader of the group leads the way out of the building. Laf blinks in the sudden light, even the overcast summer evening is brighter than the dim light of the basement. Laf stumbles over the chunks of concrete, but keeps their hold on Laura.

The campus has been leveled. The building they’d been in is one of the most whole on this half, the rest ground into the earth. A gray haze hangs over the ground, making it difficult to see the entire scope of the damage.

The south end of campus, where the science building and the Zeta and Summer houses are, is less damaged. The science building has some holes in the side, but the houses are only slightly singed. The library, taking the form of an old armory, looms over them.

Mel answers the front gate, and begins cleaning Laura’s chest wound before they even make it into the front door. The Summers set Laura and Danny on the table in front of a blazing fire and surround them, armed with sutures and disinfectant. 

A Summer hauls the three of the up the stairs to a heavily fortified door, uncuffing Carmilla and Perry before throwing the three of them in there.

The room is small, with two double beds, a small dresser, and a door leading to a bathroom. Perry sinks to the floor, rubbing her wrists where the cuffs had dug in. Carmilla makes a beeline to the bathroom and Laf hears the shower running. She’s out in record time, rifling through the dresser. The Summers have left a change of clothes for each one of them, and a drawer of medical supplies.

“Weird that they would leave us sharp objects, what with the handcuffs coming here and everything.”

“Weird, yeah.” Laf takes the scissors and sutures and kneels next to Perry. The stitches in her arms and neck are crooked and stained, at this point she’d be better off with just butterfly bandages. 

“Go shower, then we can take the stitches out.” Laf kisses Perry’s forehead, and sends her to the bathroom. 

After all three of them have showered, they sit down to take out the stitches.

“How many days has it been?” 

“Five, maybe.” Carmilla passes Laf the scissors. “At least.”

The stitches come out cleanly, some blood leaking from the holes. The actual incision seems to be closed up, starting to heal.

Laf dabs hydrogen peroxide on the marks, and helps her into bed. Carmilla curls up in her own bed, pulling the covers over her head. Laf hesitates before getting into bed next to Perry. They’ve shared a bed hundreds of times before, but not since the Dean had made her presence known and gone on a rampage.

Perry doesn’t react, just stares blankly. Her face is clean, the slashes on her neck covered by bandages and her hoodie. She looks normal, just tired, but the eerie blank gaze give her away. Something has gone wrong, and Laf fears that it will never be right again. 

“Okay?” Laf takes Perry’s hand gently, bridging the gap between them, but Perry’s hand lies limp in theirs.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for self injury and scalding

There’s food lying on the floor by the door when she wakes up. The room is quiet, clean.

Clean.

There’s a feeling around the word, it’s crisp, open. It feels pure. Is that a good thing? 

It isn’t her.

Perry lies still, watching Laf sleep. They’re curled on their side, blue eyes hidden. Peaceful. 

She doesn’t know what nightmare woke her up. They’ve cycled through her brain for the past few days constantly, bleeding together, grinding against each other, against her.

There’s nothing now.

She lists facts. Her name is Lola Perry. She is twenty two. She likes to bake brownies. She has a sister. She had a sister. No.

She can’t remember the taste of brownies, she can’t remember her sister. Yes, some things. She was two years older than Perry. She was ten when she died. Her favorite color was purple.

Everything spins away from her, or doesn’t spin. She isn’t disoriented, or oriented. Just existing. 

Clean. The word meant something to her. What did it mean? It was good. A shower, a shower got someone clean. 

She’s clean now. Empty. But she’s the terraphage, the earth killer. This purity is not hers.

She climbs carefully out of bed, not waking Laf. There’s something inside her, something blocking the pain.

She needs it, needs the agony, she deserves it. 

She wants so desperately to be pure.

She turns the shower on, adjusts the heat. She will be pure. She will be clean.

Standing under the water, she’s empty of sensation. The tile is tile, the water is water. She craves sensation, anything other than this.

She turns the heat up, and scrubs at her skin with the rough soap. She washes her hair, washes every inch of her body. A cut on her arm opens up and she slides a finger into the slit to clean it. She needs to be clean. She must be clean.

She turns up the hot water some more. The steam fills the small room, the air burns her lungs. She feels nothing, is nothing.

She increases the heat and her vision flickers. She sinks down, slumped in the bottom of the tub, feeling nothing, just a fast empty space where something used to be. Her nightmares, before that, the Dean. What before that? Nothing? Was this what she’d always felt?

*****

“Perry!” She opens her eyes sprawled on the floor between the beds, her head in Laf’s lap. Carmilla is flapping a sheet at her impatiently, and cool towels are wrapped around her limbs, covering her body.

“Clean.” The word is sluggish gasp, but it’s enough.

“Don’t do that, please don’t ever do that again.” Laf sobs. “Don’t try to leave.”


	10. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a little bit more hopeful. I'm sorry I haven't been posting as much, I have a lot of end-of-high school stuff going on that makes it hard. I've got some The 100 stuff written that I'll probably post later, if anyone is into that.

Hours pass, maybe days. The Summer Society sisters stop in sometimes, leaving food, bandages. Perry lies in bed, her skin stinging. Laf and Carmilla sleep in shifts, always having someone up to keep an eye on her.

She’s floating, somewhere in between sleeping and wakefulness. She knows she’s killed people, knows she tried to end the world. Carmilla tells her again and again that it was the dean, but Perry knows. She remembers the fairy offering her control over the world, and pain on anyone who’d wronged her. She’d rejected the offer, but deep down she’d wanted it, and the fairy had seen that.

It was roundabout, but it happened. And now Silas has paid the price.

“Perr, sit up. You need to stay hydrated.” Laf gently pulls her up to a sitting position and holds a glass of water to her lips. Perry doesn’t move to drink it. “Please.” Perry lies limp, unseeing.

“Hey, anglerfish lackey. Danny wants to see you.” Laf looks terrified, and freezes. Mel is at the door impatient.

“Hey, I’ve got her.” Carmilla takes Laf’s place, and gently pushes Laf towards Mel. “If you see Laura can you tell her that I…” Carmilla trails of awkwardly and ducks her head. Laf nods, and leaves. 

Perry is motionless in Carmilla’s arms. 

“Hey, you need to drink.” Perry can feel Carmilla looking into her eyes, but can’t summon up the energy to look away. 

Carmilla sets down the water and pulls some pillows behind Perry, leaning her back against them. She takes her hand, moving it in her own hands, feeling the small burn scars from years of baking, the rough edges where the sword had rubbed at her skin. The raw scars higher up.

“I know what it feels like. Like you’re impure, something yanked out of you and there’s nothing but the dirt of your own grave to fill it in.” Carm sets down Perry’s hand and takes her other one, examining the thin scar across her palm from a bagel cutting accident. “It makes you wonder what was there before. If you really were who you thought you were.”

Perry feels something small in her heart, something that isn’t her own. But it isn’t the Dean’s either.

“You just need to take it one day at a time. Every breath we take is revenge on her, every smile, every tear. I don’t know what she took out of me, but there was a space and I filled it. The first time with hate and courage. Later times with pain, fear, love. You have to keep moving, keep collecting memories. I saw her do this to my siblings, saw them waste away, give up. You’re stronger than that. So is everyone around her. Everyone has small pieces of themselves to give, small pieces that can fill you in until you learn to make your own substance. Lafontaine has so much they want to give, you just need to open yourself.”

Carmilla lifts the glass to Perry’s lips again, and she drinks. Not much, not as much as she probably needs. But she feels the cool water slide down her throat, together with the kindness that Carmilla has just shown her. It pools at the bottom of the pit in her soul, not even starting to fill the hole, but glowing softly. Maybe she isn’t as alone as she thought.


End file.
